An endless storm of arrows focused on Prospero. It made sense, because the other combatants had trouble approaching him. At least he was able to tie up a good number of enemy archers, including a couple Integration cultivators. Prospero Vandale recalled time spent training with Kseniya both in his previous life and more recently. Considering the number of attacks it would be more appropriate to train with Anton, but unfortunately the man had never been a match for Prospero before Prospero’s own death exterminating multiple prominent members of the Twin Soul Sect. Kseniya was more focused, making good use of a few arrows.

Though that was about what Prospero had to deal with from the Integration archers. The rest he could avoid, not completely ignoring them but unconcerned about serious injuries. They seemed to consider themselves safe from counterattacks, but he was actually just waiting for a chance amid his orbiting stars.

When the speed of their rotation was sufficient, he released one from his gravitational pull, slinging it forward at mind numbing speeds. It was something an Integration cultivator might hope to dodge, but the Life Transformation cultivator below barely knew what hit her.

At the same time, Prospero targeted one of the two Integration cultivators, his star catching several arrows in flight towards him and annihilating them. The man leapt to the side, but a curve Prospero introduced brought it right next to the man, where it exploded. A passing detonation wouldn’t be as effective as a direct hit, but it was a better use of energy than simply allowing his attack to pass by. There was a limit to the range he could control his orbital attacks, and that one would simply fly further down the battlefield if left alone.

The planet being fought over was one of little significance, just one on the border with the Harmonious Citadel. The victory itself wasn’t as important as defeating enemy forces. No saints seemed to be present, which Prospero was glad for. He didn’t want to die again just a couple centuries into his new life. If any saints showed up, they’d have few options but to retreat. There weren’t many Augmentation cultivators on their side, though they had finally swayed the One Thousand Palm Sect to join their side. Prospero knew the Dark Ring had one or two more in hiding somewhere, but having another known Augmentation cultivator made the Harmonious Citadel at least a little bit more restrained.

It also helped that their lesser cultivators were easily cut down, given the widespread study of Citadel’s Downfall. It was possible that the Harmonious Citadel would get their hands on the technique and come up with countermeasures or fix their flaws, but that was unlikely to be very effective even if it came to pass. After all, it would require a shift in centuries of training for an entire sect, instead of everyone learning the right moves they could use to counter a few specific styles. Prospero didn’t need to know techniques to counter swords with bows, but it was useful to know how to spot openings in the shield users, among others. The literature even covered the light cultivators, in the grand scheme of things a recent addition to the sect’s lineup.

The techniques they used were actually higher quality, but also harder to train. Thus, they were thankfully rare. Only the saint of light was a significant concern, but he was tracked very carefully. It did say something, however, that the Harmonious Citadel would shift from its traditional seven styles to eight for a single individual. Apparently that had caused waves back in the day, but Prospero wasn’t around for any of that. As far as the history of the upper realms went, the only significant event he’d been around for was the events around Xankeshan- and of course the death of two saints within the last decade.

A particularly focused arrow required Prospero to block it with one of his stars, negating the incoming attack’s power. He was going to have to take out one of those two Integration cultivators or retreat. Since he’d built up enough momentum, he would try for the former. A series of the spinning stars around him launched forward, towards each Integration cultivator. However, Prospero was already curving some that seemed to be aimed towards the second back towards the first. A cultivator of that caliber could dodge even extreme velocity projectiles, but he predicted how the man would dodge and managed a series of near hits, stars exploding next to the man- and those threw him off enough to stop him for a moment. The last star, lagging behind the others, struck him directly in the chest, driving a fist-sized hole in his sternum before exploding internally, as it was intended to do.

There wasn’t enough left of the man’s torso for Prospero to be concerned about his further involvement with the living, so he followed up by condensing his remaining stars into a defensive pattern. He didn’t have the ability to take out the second one without great risk to his own life, so he would save himself to coordinate with someone else… or just let them leave. Every Integration cultivator they could take out was one more the enemy wouldn’t have later. That was the same on their own side, but their Integration cultivators included more ascended individuals or those who otherwise managed more than the basic rush to Integration that the Harmonious Citadel supported. Even the devotion used by the Glorious Harmony Technique only made up for the flaws in such a system, instead of catapulting them ahead. Cultivation was not a system where everyone could follow the same path, not beyond Life Transformation- and even Essence Collection was a point of significant divergence for most sects. The Harmonious Citadel had gained their power by having a clear and concise path that would bring people to a certain point… but there was no guarantee their disciples would be able to find their way forward from there.

-----

“What about now?” the voice said from in front of Chidi. If he was allowed to feel Velvet’s face, he could easily determine if her eyes were open or pointed at him. But he supposed it wasn’t very stealthy to be reaching out for people’s faces.

Was her gaze on him? It felt like it kinda was, kinda wasn’t. The fact that he was able to detect anything at all was due to quite a bit of training- a gaze not augmented by energy was the sort of intangible thing that people couldn’t really feel. Not without other tricks, at least. In this case… “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It feels like you’re… looking past me?”

Velvet shook her head. He could determine that just from hearing, no touch involved. “No,” she said to be clear. “But close, in a way. I was looking at you with just one eye.”

“Is that… less effective?”

“Some information is lost, such as a good sense of depth. The same as covering one of your ears and trying to determine the direction of a sound, it’s more difficult.”

“I get it,” Chidi said. “It’s harder to feel.”

“That’s the point,” Velvet said. “I doubt you’ll run into that situation often, certainly not on purpose to mess you up. But you could face single eyed individuals. Alright what about… now?”

Chidi restrained himself. For this exercise listening for eyelids opening or closing was outside of the proper scope. That also meant he shouldn’t wait for a blink. So he tried to quickly pick out what was going on.

“There are… two of you?” Chidi said, uncertain. “Velvet, probably. And definitely Aconite. But you might be using just one eye?”

Aconite’s snort told him what he needed to know.

“Very good,” Velvet said. “Were you able to pick out directions?”

“Not really,” Chidi admitted. “I already knew where the two of you were. Though I can definitely feel Aconite differently.” Maybe because she was a wolf, or because he knew her.

“Alright, stealth training time!” Velvet declared. “First solo runs, then a team. Then with Chidi mounted on Aconite’s back.”

Aconite growled in protest, and Chidi translated. “She says there’s no point in the last one. Because I don’t fight from her back.”

“So?” Velvet said. “You could leave just one set of prints. And maybe you have to carry him when he’s wounded.”

Aconite gave a few growls and barks. “Do I really have to say that?” Chidi asked. Aconite gave a grunt. “Alright, fine. Aconite says if we’re doing that, she might be injured so I might also have to carry her…”

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Velvet said, her face muscles grinning loudly enough for Chidi to hear without even focusing on it. “We’ll include that, too. Sneaking while carrying something bigger than you isn’t going to come up often, but a worthy exercise nonetheless.”

-----

Aconite whimpered.

“This is your fault, you know,” Chidi whispered at her complaint. “Now shush.”

Hopping from pole to pole was hard enough while being quiet. Doing it while carrying a large wolf’s front paws over his shoulder was… several steps worse. It threw off his balance and he was fairly certain they would be spotted by anyone vaguely looking in their direction. Or who could hear. Or anyone with a sense of smell.

It wasn’t that Aconite smelled bad. Alright, sometimes she smelled like literal death- poisons weren’t always pleasant to smell- but one constant about her was that she smelled like some sort of plant. That did cover up her wolfiness, but it would still be obvious.

Except apparently humans with eyes focused on that way more than the other senses. That was good for Chidi, because it made picking them out with anything else a million times easier. Sound was their next most popular thing, but nobody on guard duty kept a constant attention on the changes in smells. Though, Velvet said that wasn’t entirely true, especially when facing beast cultivators. Cultivators who trained to get the power of beasts, specifically. There weren’t that many of the other sort like Aconite and her family, for some reason. Maybe because they couldn’t talk to humans, and the other way around. Then again, cultivators apparently killed each other a lot regardless.

The poles Chidi had to hop between were sturdy and decently well balanced. They could topple over if he was careless, but their purpose was more to limit the places he could move to and force him to focus on controlling his position with his body more than his energy. If he used energy, it was easier for any of the watchers to pick him out.

Speaking of which, there were a couple up ahead- not only flooding the area with their senses, but looking. Detecting where people’s eyes went without being in their vision was a big pain, but he had an extremely vague sense. Of course, people like Velvet could negate that.

“Aconite, I’m going to need to have you spot them,” Chidi whispered.

A tiny snort of assent. Then he tossed her up. Chidi could only hope that they were looking somewhere parallel to the ground like a ‘normal’ person. Apparently ‘peripheral vision’ was able to pick out movement. On the other hand, it was good to know that sight didn’t work in all directions at once. That was a powerful limitation he could exploit. Anyone sneaking up on Chidi would hardly have any luck doing so from behind, unless they were just that good.

Aconite sailed to the peak of the throw, her head tilting down to hopefully look towards the watchers. Then she came back, Chidi holding his arms high to grab the pits below here forelimbs, then letting his arms spin back to slow her fall instead of stopping her all at once.

Aconite quietly described where the two were, and Chidi resisted groaning. How was this even going to be possible? The web of sensory energy up ahead covered almost anything. It was difficult to find a gap that he could get through, let alone Aconite. That was without accounting for vision. Sure, they were only Essence Collection cultivators, but they could still look at them.

“Here’s the plan…” Chidi whispered with the least volume he could. Either they were far enough or the guards were pretending not to hear, but he couldn’t exactly communicate with no sound at all. And they wouldn’t understand the plan, if he used wolfspeak. Maybe they were just waiting to catch him properly, instead of just calling out they found him and hoping he was close enough to count.

Since he couldn’t see any other options, he enacted the plan. Aconite couldn’t feel the fine details of energy senses, the holes, so he just had her curl up. Then he tossed her forward, passing diagonally between vertical poles.

A moment later he ducked down, hanging horizontally before he leapt below the edge of the pit all the poles were standing in. He caught the pole and managed to stretch out his legs far enough for Aconite to bite onto an ankle on her way down. He swung her down and barely managed to avoid hurting himself. The sharp teeth weren’t the actual problem compared to simply her momentum and weight. But he didn’t fall, and things were basically quiet.

“Spotted!” one of the guards called out.

Dammit.